Insights in the Global Genetics and Gut Microbiome of Black Soldier Fly, Hermetia illucens: Implications for Animal Feed Safety Control
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The utilization of the black soldier fly (BSF) Hermetia illucens L. for recycling organic waste into high-quality protein and fat biomass for animal feeds has gained momentum worldwide. However, information on the genetic diversity and environmental implications on safety of the larvae is limited. This study delineates genetic variability and unravels gut microbiome complex of wild-collected and domesticated BSF populations from six continents using mitochondrial COI gene and 16S metagenomics. All sequences generated from the study linked to H. illucens accessions KM967419.1, FJ794355.1, FJ794361.1, FJ794367.1, KC192965.1 and KY817115.1 from GenBank. Phylogenetic analyses of the sequences generated from the study and rooted by GenBank accessions of Hermetia albitarsis Fabricius and Hermetia sexmaculata Macquart separated all samples into three branches, with H. illucens and H. sexmaculata being closely related. Genetic distances between H. illucens samples from the study and GenBank accessions of H. illucens ranged between 0.0091 and 0.0407 while H. sexmaculata and H. albitarsis samples clearly separated from all H. illucens by distances of 0.1745 and 0.1903, respectively. Genetic distance matrix was used to generate a principal coordinate plot that further confirmed the phylogenetic clustering. Haplotype network map demonstrated that Australia, USA 1 (Rhode Island), USA 2 (Colorado), Kenya and China shared a haplotype, while Uganda shared a haplotype with GenBank accession KC192965 BSF from USA. All other samples analyzed had individual haplotypes. Out of 481,695 reads analyzed from 16S metagenomics, four bacterial families (Enterobactereaceae, Dysgonomonadaceae, Wohlfahrtiimonadaceae and Enterococcaceae) were most abundant in the BSF samples. Alpha-diversity, as assessed by Shannon index, showed that the Kenyan and Thailand populations had the highest and lowest microbe diversity, respectively; while microbial diversity assessed through Bray Curtis distance showed USA 3 (Maysville) and The Netherlands populations to be the most dissimilar. Our findings on genetic diversity revealed slight phylogeographic variation between BSF populations across the globe. The 16S data depicted larval gut bacterial families with economically important genera that might pose health risks to both animals and humans. This study recommends pre-treatment of feedstocks and postharvest measures of the harvested BSF larvae to minimize risk of pathogen contamination along the insect-based feed value chain.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".